Pit stop in Tallinn

I arrived to my apartment in Tallinn at the magnificant Nano Café yesterday. Yes...I actually rent an apartment on top of the coolest café in the world! Had several meetings yesterday and today regarding my big concert in the Estonian Concert Hall on October 16th. And today I went to the Opera to rehears with Nadja and Anastassia. They are coming to my festival in Fredrikstad in september and then they are also performing on my concert here in Tallinn in October. Bach + Kolstad + pointy shoes = something you GOT to see;)

Honored with the Elkjøp-award

Elkjøp is a huge chain in Norway (exists in Greece also, I believe) for electronic devices of all sorts with very high quality. They just opened a brand new mega-store in my hometown, Fredrikstad. I had the previlige of receveing their "opening-scholarship" worth 50.000 NOK (approx 8300 UDS) today and gave a short recital in the store! THAT was fun! I used all of the money to buy a grand piano (the one in the photo) to one of my favourite cafées in Fredrikstad - Verdensspeilet Café. As of today it is the official Café de Concert festival-café, which actually is hosting the 5th annual festival this September 16th, check out www.cafedeconcert.no/festival
Verdensspeilet Café, congratulations with your new grand piano, and well done with the renotavion of the oldest cinema in Fredrikstad into a superfunky and new, open space in your café! Elkjøp, thank you so very, very much! Special thank´s to Christian Brekke and Anders Foss from Elkjøp! I am honored to recieve your award! And MAN did my new Jordan Nike´s suit your floor!!

Choosing new concert shoes

One stop in the Nikey store on 5th avenue made me go completely bananas!!
But in the end I ended up with the new Air Jordan´s - feels out of this world!!

Comic Strip and Shabana Rehma

At my Carnegie preview-concert the other day I met the famous comic writer Jeffrey Gurian who yesterday took me to the the historical Comic Strip and also introduced me to the legendary Richard Tienken, owner of the Comic Strip and former manager of Eddie Murphy for 11 years. The Comic Strip is the place where every major comedian today started out. Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, David Chapell, Adam Sandler, Jerry Seinfeld....soon to be Aksel Kolstad??



Yesterday night was also the premiere of the Norwegian-Pakistani performance artist and comedian Shabana Rehma´s show "For Kingdom and Fatherland". The story of her life served to the audience as hors d'oeuvres of pureb blood, sweat and tears. Shabana - you got balls! Respect!





After a great reception at Kristin Dahle from Innovation Norway, Jeffrey pulled other with his Jag and took the Norwegian mafia out on town!

World Basketball Festival kick-off with Jay-Z

So after the Dime Magazine-article Susan Blond Inc. thought that we might want to follow up some more regarding my love for the game, which brought me to the kick-off of the World Basketball Festival in Radio City Hall with the USA Basketball-team showing off in addition to spectacular dancers, gymnasts and marching bands. Awsome show!





And then, the roof-top came off....
Now I know, this city belongs to Jay-Z!



And PS: If you ever want to hire a publicist in NY - Susan Blond Inc. makes it happen!!

Successfull Carnegie preview-concert at WMP

People started to come at 6:30 pm to mingle and where having a great time at the wonderful WMP, Workshop for Music Perofmances - my new home in New York.



At 7:15 pm EST I was online on UStream, having an interview with Eric Wielander from my creative publicist Susan Blond Inc.






And at 7:30 pm spitfire Kolstad started his attack;) I had a great time on stage and the audience seemed to have so too!







Dime Magazine was there and posted an article the morning after, that was cool!
http://dimemag.com/2010/08/aksel-kolstad-where-basketball-meets-classical-music/#comments

WMP is one of the best venues I have performed in, which also reflects the magnificant crew working there. Top notch musicians which also have a brilliant mind for music business. Dear friends in Europe, especially you in Norway, get your asses over at WMP to perform and mingle with the right people in NY!!

www.wmpconcerthall.com

A day in the Hamptons

After tons of meetings, hours of rehearsing and a lot of working out in central park since August 3rd , my wonderful producer Anna Gutto suggested I should come out to the Hamptons yesterday, to relax a bit in between work hours on Saturday´s to do list. And what a great idea that was...



But of course I had to do a little propaganda for my Carnegie preview-concert this upcoming Tuesday, handing out invitations and business cards on the beach to cool local people!



Anna also introduced me to the super funky Hampton Music Store and its very cool owner. There is absolutely no doubt,
I´m gonna play a couple of Café de Concert-concerts here either this or next year!! It´s like a store made into a livingroom!! Totally dig it! Feel´s like playing at home!









After all of Saturday´s administrative work was done (and thank you Anna, for fixing and manageing to book my maniac-cross atlantic round-trip concert banana-crazy tour-ticket) I went out in the Hamptons...

One old Steinway out the door, one new Yamaha in da house

Here is a little story about one of yesterday´s events in "casa del musica mafia"...

Starring:

My old Steinway - actually this was the first grand Steinway and Sons sponsored Café de Concert with in 2003 through the legendary Thron Irby....a lot of history and concerts bewteen this old lady´s keys...
My new Yamaha (man, what a machine!!)
Christiania Transport
Pianoverkstedet, Holthe og Bakke AS
Aksel Kolstad (lucky bastard)
Jan Gunnar Sørbø (another lucky bastard)



















My precious....


Check out my fanpage on facebook (Aksel Kolstad) for videos of me and my new machine;)